Meeting Set On Suv Safety Issue

April 19, 1998|By Kevin Kelly, Knight-Ridder/Tribune.

DETROIT — Leaders of the Big Three automakers and the director of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will meet here May 31 through June 4 to discuss sport-utility vehicle and light-truck safety.

A study by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety indicated SUVs posed a safety hazard to occupants of passenger cars. That caused a firestorm of publicity that has put the Big Three on the defensive.

NHTSA said it also would conduct several crash-test studies to determine whether SUVs and light trucks are a hazard to occupants of small cars.

Six crash tests are to pit a 1998 Honda Accord against a 1998 Chevrolet S-10 pickup, a 1997 Ford Explorer and a 1997 Dodge Caravan. The crash tests--three frontal and three side--will try to determine the degree of mismatches in vehicle design in a collision. A number of Big Three executives, including Ford President Jac Nasser and Chrysler Chairman Robert Eaton, have called the insurance institute study a validation of the laws of physics. But NHTSA's crash-test results could force automakers to review SUV design plans.

"Crash testing will give us the real-world safety information on these larger vehicles," NHTSA director, Dr. Richardo Martinez, said in a statement.

NHTSA pointed to another study, this one conducted by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute, that indicated a fatality was five times more likely to occur to occupants of a passenger car when they are struck by an SUV head-on. That study also said passenger-car occupants were 30 times more likely to be killed when hit in the side by an SUV.

Andrew Card, president of the industry trade group American Automobile Manufacturers Association, said Big Three leaders were anxious to discuss the issue with government regulators. Card has said the insurance institute study was flawed.

"America's car companies are leaders in the development of automotive safety technology and are committed to the safety of all occupants of all vehicles," he said. "Their light trucks and vans . . . provide the utility, environmental sensitivity and safety that American consumers want."